Welcome to the AAPG Learn! Interview Series. We are launching an interview series with AAPG members and also participants in our events so that you can learn about what they're doing and potentially get in contact, collaborate, and advance your knowledge. Our interviews also tie to our events such as a great new workshop that addresses ways to be profitable in a downturn.
Today we have an interview with William D. Chandler, whose work on the wellsite has led to the development of innovative new ways to identify productive zones.
Our goal is to learn from each other. Please share your own story or experience. Contact Susan Nash (snash@aapg.org)

In order to qualify for the Reduced Speaker Registration Fee or the Discounted Exhibitor basic booth space or Exhibitor Corporate Sponsor Level, speaker abstracts or exhibitor registrations must be received by April 30th!!

This brief article is a continuation of 'U.S. Oil and Gas Plays that Work Now for the Small Independent or Small Consultant Team (Part I)' which aims to provide sources of information that can be used to develop a list of candidates to acquire, and to target wells and fields that can be revitalized using new technologies and team-based approaches. Some of the areas are potentially a better fit for a medium-sized company with significant access to capital. Some areas are ideal for the small independent or consultant.

AAPG is excited about presenting THREE Short Courses in four days!
Basic Seismic Interpretation 17-18 May 2016
'Old' (pre-1958) Electric Logs: A Quick Review 19 May 2016
Quick Guide to Carbonate Well Log Analysis 20 May 2016

This course is intended for engineers who need a better understanding of the geology and geological concepts used in exploration and production decisions, including petroleum engineers, drilling and completion engineers and others who may need a basic petroleum geology refresher. It will also be valuable for GeoTechs, Landmen, Bankers, Office staff and others who work with geologists and need a basic knowledge of geology and geologic terminology and processes.

In June, 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency released its long awaited draft assessment of the Potential Impacts on Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas on Drinking Resources. The major finding in the draft assessment is that there is no evidence that hydraulic fracturing has caused “widespread, systematic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States”.

The Canada Region Young Professional (YP) Committee has been making great strides to increase awareness and activities for YP members in the Region. Our current initiatives include improving the student-to-YP transition, collaborating with other societies and expanding knowledge of the YP program beyond Calgary, Canada’s central oil patch.

Whole core from both the Delaware and Midland Basins will be examined to understand the changes in slope deposits from both confined and unconfined settings. The goal of this course will be to understand how these deposits impact reservoir quality in the basins.

This virtual short course focuses on methods and workflows for identifying, characterizing, and developing tight-shale reservoirs. Participants will learn how to apply mudrock depositional, sedimentological, sequence stratigraphic, and geochemical principles to exploration areas and production assets in shale basins.

Ray Leonard will be talking to us about 'Climate Change, Covid-19 and the Effect on Energy’s Future'. Fossil fuels have led to a profound increase in world living standards but resulting emissions of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere are a primary factor in climate change. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 has resulted in a significant decrease in world economic activity, which in turn has led to a major, if temporary, decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO2. Join Ray Leonard via Zoom on June 15 at 12:00 GMT+1

Gil Machado is a Petroleum Exploration Geologist with a Ph.D in stratigraphy and source rock characterization. Gil's presentation 'Reducing Uncertainty and Increasing Chances of Success Using Biostratigraphy', will explore the role of biostratigraphy in the exploration workflow. Several success cases from around the World will be detailed, showing the uses of this discipline for sedimentation age determination, paleoenvironmental interpretation and source rock characterization. Join Gil Machado via Zoom on June 10 at 12:00 GMT+1

Geophysicist with extensive worldwide experience in exploration, appraisal and development settings gained at BG group a major operator. He will talk about future energy demand modelling in terms of oil, gas and electricity including renewables with his presentation 'Petroleum Perspectives ,Past Present and Future'. Join Alan Foum via Zoom on June 8 at 12:00 GMT+1.

Visiting Geoscientist Juan Pablo Lovecchio reviews general aspects of rifting, rifts and passive margin formation and evolution through time, as well as elements of petroleum system development. Join Juan Pablo Lovecchio via Zoom on June 30 at 18:00 GMT-6.

Visiting Geoscientist Mauricio Guizada provides an overview of general structural geology of the Andes, with a focus on the Central Andes. His talk covers topics related to onshore exploration, G&G methods in exploration and risk analysis. Join Mauricio Guizada via Zoom on June 23 at 14:00 GMT-6.

Visiting Geoscientist Mauricio Guizada provides an overview of general structural geology of the Andes, with a focus on the Central Andes. His talk covers topics related to onshore exploration, G&G methods in exploration and risk analysis. Join Mauricio Guizada via Zoom on June 23 at 17:00 GMT-6.

Visiting Geoscientist Gretchen Gillis provides advice for on submitting abstracts to conferences, including AAPG’s ACE and ICE events. The information presented also is relevant to students presenting their research.

Visiting Geoscientist Susan Morrice shares her personal experience and insight in this talk about opportunities for geoscientists. “Geoscientists have advantages ... They are Time Travellers and have open minds. Bringing this creativity and innovation to your company or starting your own! Challenging times bring silver linings!”

This online short course is designed to provide a geologic perspective of unconventional reservoirs to both geoscientists and non-geoscientists. By completing the course participants will have a better understanding of the depositional environments of unconventional reservoirs, when and where source rocks formed in the geologic record, the basics of sequence stratigraphy, and more.

The course will focus on a Machine Learning workflow in the upstream Oil and Gas domain to generate synthetic Gamma-Ray Logs by applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) Techniques and then learning the various aspects of deploying this workflow in an end-to-end solution that a Geoscientist can use.

In times of distressed operatorship, the geologic discipline often gets placed on the back burner. This course is designed for the geologist to use data at hand to directly impact the bottom line at your company using the humblest and commonest of data sets.

This online short course is designed to provide a geologic perspective of the climate debate to both geoscientists and non-geoscientists. By completing the course participants will have a better understanding of how the earth’s climate/sea levels/plates have changed/moved over geologic time, the earth’s evolving climate/plate positions/sea-level variations affected life on earth, and the environment has impacted man & man has impacted the earth’s environment.

Biostratigraphy is a fundamental discipline in petroleum exploration and development as it provides information on sedimentation ages, paleoenvironmental settings and source rock potential. This course will cover the main fossil groups used in commercial biostratigraphy, their temporal and spatial distribution, the contexts in which they occur and how they are used to provide solutions to geological and technical problems.

Much of unstructured data mining is based on machine learning, this course will seek to instill memorable intuitive understanding of machine learning. One of the primary purposes will be to help people who are immersed in the oil and gas industry gain a practical understanding of what unstructured data is, what value there is in it, how it can be utilized and why this is now relevant.

Any complete core analysis program should include companion thin sections for all core plugs on which measurements have been made. This course will describe the use of multimodal thin section imaging and image analysis to make quantitative estimates of rock properties that are important in hydrocarbon exploration and production.

This course will allow beginner or intermediate professionals to provide with daily geochemical solutions to executional E&P projects from exploration to WIM/production and environmental footprints issues.

During this course, participants will gain the foundations for understanding and predicting the geometry, connectivity, and permeability trends of fluvial reservoir systems at the scale of boreholes, fields, and basins. A full range of topics needed to identify, correlate, and interpret fluvial reservoirs and encasing non-reservoir units will be covered.

Designed to give geoscientists a better understanding of the risk factors associated with unconventional “shale” hydrocarbon reservoirs, based on the geology, mineralogy, organic-richness, hydrocarbon content, and the reservoir rock mechanical properties, providing a core for integration and collaboration of many disciplines such as geology, geophysics, geochemistry, and earth modeling as well as drilling, completion, reservoir stimulation and production engineering.

Trip leader(s): Josep Anton Muñoz, Pablo Granado and Eduard Roca
The aim of this 2-day field trip is the recognition of the key structural features of a fold and thrust belt detached on salt that has resulted from the inversion of a previous passive margin. To achieve this objective, some of the key and most spectacular localities of the southern Pyrenees have been selected along the ECORS-Pyrenees transect. This is a reference cross-section provided that for many years a huge amount of geological and geophysical data sets has been collected and integrating into a kinematic model of the South-Pyrenean fold and thrust belt. Subsurface data (well logs and seismic sections) will be combined with field observations. One of the main characteristics of the southern Pyrenees is the preservation of the synorogenic sediments since the earlier stages of deformation, which not only provide time constraints but also allow us discussion of kinematics of fault-related folds and thrust systems. Finally, the mild contractional deformation permits deciphering the initial geometry of the rift system and the salt structures that configure the structural grain of the passive margin before the inversion, allowing discussion of the role that these structures play during the fold and thrust belt development.
Itinerary: (day by day details of the trip)
Day 1
Stop 1.1: The South-Pyrenean thrust front. Sant Llorenç de Montgai
Structure of a frontal thrust system and related unconformities. Out of sequence thrusts and synorogenic sediments.
The frontal thrust system of the South-central Pyrenees has been detached into the Triassic evaporites and involves a thin Mesozoic succession. It is characterized by an emergent thrust system during the sedimentation of upper Eocene and lower Oligocene continental sediments. Frontal thrusts were progressively buried by conglomerates, triggering a break-back thrusting sequence and the development of out-of-sequence thrusts bringing together strongly different Mesozoic successions, such as the Montroig thrust in the picture.
Stop 1.2: The Ager basin and the Montsec thrust sheet. Fontllonga
The Ager basin in the footwall of the Montsec thrust.
The Montsec thrust sheet developed from the Paleocene to the Early Eocene as recorded by continental to shallow marine sediments deposited in its footwall (Ager basin) as well as in the Tremp-Graus piggy-back basin. The lower Eocene sediments of these basins grade westward into the slope succession filling the Ainsa basin at the footwall of the Montsec thrust.
Stop 1.3: The frontal structure of the Montsec thrust sheet. Ametlla (optional: Montrebei)
Fault-propagation fold related with the inversion of Early Cretaceous extensional faults and growth deltaic sediments in the footwall syncline.
The Montsec thrust sheet involves the northern part of the Upper Cretaceous foreland basin characterised by a strong subsident turbiditic trough at the footwall of the Bóixols thrust. These turbidites grade southward into a carbonatic platform that constitutes the backbone of the Montsec Range (main ridge and cliff of the pictures). Underneath the Upper Cretaceous carbonates, some Early Cretaceous extensional faults are preserved in the hanging wall of the Montsec thrust, but others have controlled the development of a hanging wall frontal anticline. The geometry of this anticline as well as the structure of the growth sediments in the footwall Ager syncline are visible in the field. The subthrust geometry will be discussed integrating surface observations and the available seismic and well data.
Overnight in Tremp
Day 2
Stop 2.1: The Sant Corneli-Bóixols anticline
Inversion of the rift margin
The Sant Corneli-Bóixols anticline is the most prominent frontal structure of the Bóixols thrust sheet in the central Pyrenees. This fold trends east–west and crops out for greater than 40 km along strike. The Sant Corneli-Bóixols anticline involves a thick Mesozoic succession detached on top of Triassic evaporites. The prefolding sequence consists of up to 5 km of prerift, synrift, and postrift carbonates ranging in age from Jurassic to Upper Cretaceous. Synfolding Upper Cretaceous sediments start with the upper Santonian carbonates and continue with a succession of Campanian and Maastrichtian marls and turbidites.
The Sant Corneli–Bóixols anticline is an example of an inversion fold developed along the rift margin of the Lower Cretaceous basin. Its geometry is related with the inverted extensional system. In particular, the three-dimensional geometry, including the saddles between culminations, is inherited from the previous transfer faults of the segmented rift margin.
Available seismic data and 3 exploratory wells constrain the geometry at depth.
Stop 2.2: The synororgenic Paleogene conglomerates
Inverted Lower Cretaceous basin and Eocene-Oligocene synorogenic conglomerates at Collegats gorge.
Stop 2.3 (optional): The Sopeira and Aulet minibasins. Sopeira
Minibasins developed by extensional collapse and salt evacuation during the thermal subsidence at the southern Pyrenean rift margin. Inversion of these minibasins at the early stages of Pyrenean contractional deformation during Late Cretaceous.
Additional logistic information
Transportation
Transportation will be with a small bus, assisted by minivans to have access to some of the outcrops.
Physical demand, equipment and safety
This is an easy field trip with very easy and limited hikes to get to the outcrops. Outcrops will be from main sealed roads.
Safety vests will be available, to be used by everybody of the group wherever required and asked to. There will be First Aid Kits available in each car during fieldwork.
Climate
The climate during mid-end November in the fieldwork area can be cold and rainy, although dry and sunny days may occur as well. The temperature for November in Tremp can range between 30C and 170C. Participants should be prepared in case we should encounter bad weather and you should bring warm and waterproof clothes and suitable hiking boots.

Date: 3rd February 2021
Time: 7am – 4pm
Field Trip Leaders: Mohammed Masrahy and Fawaz Al Khaldi, Saudi Aramco
Registration Fee: $95
Registration Deadline: 16th December 2020
Field Trip Description
Analogues, especially ancient outcrop and modern analogues, have played a crucial role in improving the understanding of subsurface reservoir architectural elements. They provide important information on subsurface reservoir geobody size, geometry, and potential connectivity, which all contribute to better reservoir characterization, mainly in highly heterogeneous siliciclastic or carbonate reservoirs that require the integration and detailed analysis of petrophysics, facies, diagenesis, geometry, depositional environments and lateral and vertical variability.
Subsurface reservoir models are limited by available geological data. Outcrop and modern analogs from comparable systems provide additional input to geological models of the subsurface. This field trip will provide valuable insights into the nature of this complexity.
Aims and Objectives
The field trip will comprise a field study of a range of continental clastic modern systems and marine carbonate ancient systems, and related sedimentary facies, each of which possesses attributes that are comparable in part to the subsurface deposits.
Field trip attendees will gain knowledge about key competencies related to field geology such as measuring vertical sections, describing sedimentary structures and textures, describing sedimentary facies, identifying depositional environments, and linking sedimentological observations to subsurface reservoir modeling.
One specific aim of this field trip is to emphasize that integrated reservoir characterization and modeling processes take into account actual depositional trends and the distribution of the sedimentary bodies.
Intended Learning Outcomes
This field trip will provide explanations and discussions of the following aspects:
Basin age, mechanisms of tectonic development, and regional palaeogeographic setting.
An introduction to techniques and criteria for the recognition of continental (fluvial and aeolian systems), shallow marine and carbonate related sedimentary facies in outcrop and modern system and discussions of the application of these techniques to the study of subsurface sedimentology and geological modeling.
Discussions of the 1D, 2D and 3D facies architecture with particular consideration of the geometry and scale of key stratal bodies that have relevance for understanding subsurface hydrocarbon reservoirs.
Discussion of the nature of autocyclic (intrinsic) interactions between competing sedimentary processes and consideration of the implications of these in terms of reservoir quality.
Discussion of the nature of allocyclic (external) controls on sedimentary processes and consideration of the effects of temporal and spatial changes in these controls on the preserved succession (through introduction of sequence stratigraphic concepts).
The significance of accurately determining the preserved geometry of reservoir successions and how to undertake correlations at the interwell scale.
How to predict the 3D distribution of net versus non-net reservoir.
How best to make region-wide predictions in areas for which palaeogeography is poorly constrained.

This course will discuss the Huff-n-Puff gas EOR process specifically, but will also address relevant fundamentals of displacement-based gas EOR methods (miscibility, vaporization, and displacement) in tight unconventionals.

Data driven modeling is becoming a key differentiation to unlock higher recoveries from existing fields as well as identify new opportunities. In this course, we will be introducing advanced analytical tools and techniques - machine learning and data mining algorithms used to identify of trends and patterns in any given dataset and predict future trends.

This course provides a comprehensive methodology for the diagnosis, analysis, and forecasting of well production data in unconventional resources. An extensive evaluation of the diagnostic tools for assessing data viability, checking data correlation along with flow regime identification is presented.

The course is designed for both graduate students majoring in applied geophysics and more experienced geophysicists working in research, technical service, or exploration. Attendees are expected to be familiar with the basics of seismic wave propagation and data processing.

Geomechanics – in both completions and drilling operations – has become a critical technology in the development of Unconventional Plays. This course presents the basics of oil field geomechanics and its application to unconventional developments, specifically, the role of stress, pore pressure, mechanical properties, and natural fractures on hydraulic fracturing operations.

This one-day session will include a view of best practices for Carbon Management with a focus on fugitive methane reduction. It will include global and local examples of Carbon Regulations, give tools for de-risking regulatory compliances and field-proven methane reduction technology cases.

This workshop will focus on advances made in petroleum systems analysis as a predictor of hydrocarbon presence, new technology and applications, and future directions of this important geological tool.

This 2-day conference brings together diverse experts working on modern and ancient turbidite, MTDs, contourite and hybrid/mixed systems in order to improve the present-day knowledge, models and predictive power.

Join us for the AAPG Europe Workshop in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to be held in Utrecht, Netherlands on its new date, 15-16 September 2020. The aim of this conference is to explore how best to develop large scale geostorage of CO2.

This workshop brings together experts from academia and industry from a range of disciplines to share experiences, new approaches, new data and new ways of integrating information that can help in reducing the uncertainties related to the exploration activities in Thrust Belt Systems.

Join us in Salzburg, the “castle of salt” and cradle of Mozart and Doppler, for a meeting aimed at bringing together different perspectives in the science of evaporite basins: from their formation to their deformation, from description and characterization to modelling. Exploratory success in evaporite-rich basins worldwide has depended on the role of evaporites as a deformable substrate, as a seal, or even as a good thermal conductor. The aim of this workshop is to improve our understanding and predictive ability by addressing evaporite systems in an integrated manner, all the way from precipitation to structuration, and exploring the multiple properties of evaporite sequences. The pre- and post-meeting field trips will also explore the salt mining heritage of the region, first exploited by the Celts 3500 years ago, and the salt-related structures of the Northern Calcareous Alps.

Deltas are extremely important depositional systems and often source and contain prolific hydrocarbon accumulations. This workshop includes topical lectures, key cores, and a suite of exercises that integrate core, well logs, experimental flume data, and seismic sections to develop identification and subsurface mapping skills of hydrocarbon accumulations within deltaic settings.

The AAPG Latin America & Caribbean Region and the Colombian Association of Petroleum Geologists and Geophysicists (ACGGP) invite you join us for GTW Colombia 2020, a specialized workshop bringing leading scientists and industry practitioners to share best practices, exchange ideas and explore opportunities for future collaboration.
The 2-day workshop brings together technical experts and industry leaders from Colombia and throughout the Americas to take a multidisciplinary look at future opportunities for exploration and development of Southern Caribbean Frontier Basins.

Date: Sunday 8 November 2020
Time: To be determined
Organized by: Southeast Asia Carbonate Research Laboratory, SEACARL, The Department of Geosciences, Faculty Fundamental Sciences, Information system Technology, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS.
While AAPG and EAGE welcome this Field Trip in conjunction with our 2-day Geosciences Technology Workshop, all management and attending responsibilities will be taken care of by Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS.
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Further details to come.

High CO2 fields and marginal fields (due to high levels of contaminants) are some of the challenges that are prevalent in the Asia Pacific petroleum industry. Join AAPG Asia Pacific for a 2-day workshop focused on best practices, risk-based planning and the role geoscientists and engineers will play in these changing times.

Join us for the 3rd Edition of Stratigraphic Traps of the Middle East. The Geosciences Technology Workshop (GTW) aims to build on the success of the previous two workshops the AAPG hosted on stratigraphic traps of the Middle East GTW in Muscat Oman in 2014 and 2017.
See Event Website

The Betic hinterland, in the westernmost Mediterranean, constitutes a unique example of a stack of metamorphic units. Using a three-dimensional model for the crustal structure of the Betics-Rif area this talk will address the role of crustal flow simultaneously to upper-crustal low-angle faulting in the origin and evolution of the topography.

The following short course option was developed for geology and geophysics students that have not had much exposure to how geoscience is applied in industry. It can be tailored for undergraduate juniors and seniors or graduate students. The agenda can be modified to meet specific needs and time constraints. Contact the presenter to discuss options.

This is a less-technical education topic. It can be condensed to an hour or given as 2 two-hour sessions. It stresses selected controversial aspects of fracking that touch some combination of environment and economics and includes a short video of how fracking is done.

Microseismicity induced by hydraulic fracture stimulation of a horizontal well was mapped with a near-surface buried array. Distinct linear trends of events were not parallel to the direction of fast shear wave polarization measured in the reservoir with a crossed-dipole anisotropy tool. Analysis of core from a nearby well revealed numerous calcite-filled fractures that did not induce shear wave polarization, but did significantly impact the failure behavior of the reservoir rock during the stimulation treatment. Hydraulic fracture simulation with DFN modeling and source mechanism analysis supports the interpretation of reactivated existing fractures rather than the formation of hydraulically-induced tensile fractures.

The following short course option was developed for geology and geophysics students that have not had much exposure to how geoscience is applied in industry. It can be tailored for undergraduate juniors and seniors or graduate students. The agenda can be modified to meet specific needs and time constraints. Contact the presenter to discuss options.

The carbonate sequences that were deposited in the now exhumed Tethyan Ocean influence many aspects of our lives today, either by supplying the energy that warms our homes and the fuel that powers our cars or providing the stunning landscapes for both winter and summer vacations. They also represent some of the most intensely studied rock formations in the world and have provided geoscientists with a fascinating insight into the turbulent nature of 250 Million years of Earth’s history.
By combining studies from the full range of geoscience disciplines this presentation will trace the development of these carbonate sequences from their initial formation on the margins of large ancient continental masses to their present day locations in and around the Greater Mediterranean and Near East region.
The first order control on growth patterns and carbonate platform development by the regional plate-tectonic setting, underlying basin architecture and fluctuations in sea level will be illustrated. The organisms that contribute to sequence development will be revealed to be treasure troves of forensic information. Finally, these rock sequences will be shown to contain all the ingredients necessary to form and retain hydrocarbons and the manner in which major post-depositional tectonic events led to the formation of some of the largest hydrocarbon accumulations in the world will be demonstrated.

Hydraulic fracturing has been around for decades. This talk describes some of the first applications of the technology, how it developed over time, and our current understanding of its impacts with some discussion of both water and earthquake hazards.

The following short course option was developed for geology and geophysics students that have not had much exposure to how geoscience is applied in industry. It can be tailored for undergraduate juniors and seniors or graduate students. The agenda can be modified to meet specific needs and time constraints. Contact the presenter to discuss options.

In comparison with the known boundary conditions that promote salt deformation and flow in sedimentary basins, the processes involved with the mobilization of clay-rich detrital sediments are far less well established. This talk will use seismic examples in different tectonic settings to document the variety of shale geometries that can be formed under brittle and ductile deformations.

In 1991, Gulf Indonesia and its partners discovered South Sumatra Basin’s first major gas field at Dayung in the Corridor PSC. A key feature of this field is that most of the reserves are held within fractured basement rocks of pre-Tertiary age.